6 Smart Ways to Get Quality Backlinks for SEO

Getting backlinks is still seriously important for good SEO. But Google has tightened up on what it will let you get away with. So how do you build backlinks without running afoul of Penguin?

By making sure that you go after high-quality, editorial links.

We’re now at a point where only very white hat link building methods still reliably work. It’s basically impossible to beg, borrow, steal, or buy links effectively. All you can do is earn them. But there are still smart ways to do that. And some of them allow you to piggyback on your competitors’ successes at the same time!

1. Guest Blogging

Google has warned against guest posting and put a lot of people off. But high quality, targeted guest posts are different from the mass-produced, low-value posts that were a staple of many SEO strategies a few years ago. Done right, guest blogging can be an effective link building tool.

2. Public Relations

Public relations in the context of link building simply means using the same methods to get backlinks that you might use to get press.

If you would like to be a source, sign up to HelpaReporter.com, and they’ll tell you when they need someone with your skills for an interview.

Also, consider classic PR moves like press releases. Bloggers and journalists hoover up information, so if anything has happened – you have a new integration, client, product, feature – make it easy to find. Then you’re likely to be linked to in any article that covers the subject.

3. Broken Link Building

Even good, well-maintained websites suffer from “linkrot.” Links lead to a location on the internet, but since websites move their content around, eventually, some links will lead to empty locations. Users arrive looking for a resource and find a vacant lot.

Broken link building fixes this and gets you links. It relies on finding broken links, identifying the content they refer to, and then offering the referring site the chance to refer out to some new, unbroken content – yours.

4. Skyscraper!

Brainchild of Brian Dean, skyscraping means finding content in your space that’s already awesome, and then out-awesoming it. A simplistic way to do this might be to think, “Hmmm, 101 Ways to Improve Your Email Marketing is doing incredibly well. I’ll do 1,001 Ways and clean up!”

It might work. Or you might create something that’s bigger without being better. More points, more words, and more pictures doesn’t always mean more value for the user. Instead, look at the content you’re skyscraping and ask yourself:

Which questions go unanswered?

Which instructions are hard to follow?

Who isn’t getting served here?

Shoot for quality, even though it’s the toughest thing to quantify, and you’re more likely to come out ahead.

5. Resource Links

Rather than linking to your blog post or a page on your website, resource links come back to your solid research or collected knowledge that everyone else needs to know.

6. Find Competitors’ Backlinks and “Steal” Them

If a site will link to a competitor, it will probably link to you, too. Start by identifying the top ten sites for each keyword you want to rank for. Do a Google search and pick the top ten domains.